Dr Terry Mortenson

Systematic Theology, History of Geology Lecturer/Researcher (USA)

Biography

Like most people, Dr Mortenson grew up in an education system that taught evolution
as fact. He started to see the fallacy of billions of years of evolution shortly
after becoming a Christian during his first year in the university and has been
studying and speaking on the creation-evolution issue since the late 1970s.

Much of his M.Div. studies focused on various (Biblical, historical and philosophical)
aspects of this subject. His Ph.D. thesis analyzed the origins of old-earth geology
in the early 19th century and particularly the writings of the ‘scriptural
geologists’, a group of scientists and non-scientists who wrote Biblical,
geological and philosophical arguments against these budding old-earth theories—see
below for a summary and links to some brief articles on these significant people
and search this site for longer articles about the scriptural geologists. Through
study and personal interaction he has been exposed to the many different Christian
and non-Christian responses to this controversy. He has spoken on the subject to
various kinds of audiences (young children, teens, university students, lay people,
professors) in various settings (homes, churches, schools, university classrooms
and public lectures in university auditoriums) and in many countries (America, England,
Russia and most countries of Eastern Europe). All of this study and teaching has
deepened his conviction of the literal truth and foundational importance of Genesis
1–11. He currently works for Answers in Genesis (USA).

Boundaries on Creation and Noah’s Flood: Early 19th Century British
Scriptural Geologists, paper given at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological
Society in Colorado Springs, CO, on Nov. 14, 2001.

The 19th Century Scriptural Geologists

In the first half of the 19th century, there were a number of Christian
writers who raised Biblical, logical and geological objections to old-earth theories
and to the reinterpretations of Scripture to harmonize with them. These men became
known as the ‘Scriptural geologists,’ and were the focus of my Ph.D.
research. The articles hyperlinked below outline the lives and key arguments of
the Scriptural geologists. More detail can be found in my Ph.D. thesis, and many
of its chapters have been republished in recent issues of TJ (above; and some are available online).

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